Originally published at: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green does not know what socialism is | Boing Boing
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well there’s your problem.
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To be fair, neither do 90% of Republicans. The rest act like they don’t so they can call whatever they don’t like Socialism. That and various other leftist positions (Marxist, antifa, etc) are now just stand ins for “shit they don’t like.”
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As with Trump, I feel like you could replace “socialism” with the word “anything” and be equally correct.
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The dog bit my uncle! SOCIALISM!
My hair is frizzy! SOCIALISM!
My car won’t start! SOCIALISM!
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but social security? medicare? home-interest deduction?
totally not socialism.
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It would be faster to list the things she does know…
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Nah, I’m pretty sure Republicans still think Social Security is socialism. It even has “social” right there in the name.
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Yep, been that way for awhile now. A baity word to fling at their rubes.
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“Calories, that’s a socialism.”
“Fat, that’s a socialism.”
—MTG, probably
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Not the ones receiving it, I have found.
You might think that this would lead to Republicans spontaneously evolving in their opinions about Social Security once they become eligible for it, and indeed this is what we find.
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I don’t know, for once I’m inclined to give her some credit. Having the government step in to keep people safe, rather than forcing them to choose between starving and putting their lives at risk for the sake of exploitative employers? That sounds like it could be a little socialist…it’s definitely not free market capitalism.
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I’m gonna be that guy…
All sorts of economies, including many economies with a socialistic flavor, are based on supply and demand. Capitalism is defined by the idea that people who own things (land, banks, factories) get free money just by virtue of their ownership. In a non-capitalist economy, you can still set prices by supply and demand… you would just have some other model of ownership of the means of production.
Greene’s basic idea (which I doubt she understands with any degree of sophistication) is that government spending (particularly spending funded by debt) increases aggregate demand, and increases in aggregate demand pose an inflationary risk. This is pretty basic Keynsianism. We can argue about the degree of the risk and the power of monetary, fiscal, and policy measures to mitigate the risk, but it’s not an out-there idea.
I mean, she’s an idiot, but mostly for other reasons.
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Thanks MTG/Qnut for the update from dumbfuckastan.
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The other day I found a thread on a woodworking forum about the cost of lumber this year… numerous sawmill employees chimed in, all complaining about the extensive overtime.
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There are few things that I despise more than rich powerful people complaining that the poor are living too well.
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Really, all modern socialism is, is mostly capitalism but with sidelines and (hopefully) the teeth to enforce when companies go out of bounds or play offsides. And a second component, that says some things like the mail, streets, police, fire brigade, and other necessities are best handled by a government.
None of the above in my oversimplified applies to what the weird lady is tweeting about. She seems to think it’s a case of “Hey, we need you to build stuff cause we’re running out!” “Nah, I’m good, I got my government money.”
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Sounds like she’s arguing that if we hadn’t shut things down and stimulated the economy, prices would be lower - because more people would have died or been unable to build/repair/expand.
Fewer live people with money = less demand.
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This is what happens when the government pays people to stay home & not work for a year.
Just wondering which country she’s talking about, because paying people to not work would be a reasonable and ethical response to a pandemic… Which is sort of the opposite of what the US has done.
Also, didn’t Trump put a bunch of tariffs on Canadian lumber?
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